You can best think of Space Rangers 2 as a combination of Star Control and Sid Meier's Pirates! with some real-time strategy and role-playing thrown in. Your job is to create your own unique avatar and fly about the galaxy, doing pretty much whatever you want to do. You can live the life of a trader, be a pirate or mercenary, or just go and explore the unknown sectors of the galaxy. Heck, you can even run for planetary office and govern a planet if you want--though if you do, you'll need to make all sorts of decisions to keep your grip on power. Or, you can attempt to conquer planets by commanding giant robots on the battlefield. It sounds like a crazy and ambitious mix of gameplay, but judging from the very positive reception the game is getting in Europe, it apparently works.

Other times, when you hit the surface of a planet, you'll get to engage in a short text adventure. The one shown in our demo involved the player being shanghaied into the president role of a budding republic. The questions launched at him allowed him to determine what kind of government would flourish on the newly inhabited planet, and the results of his term would stay in effect even after he blasted off. The funkiest mini-game by far, though, was the one that popped up when our host flew into a black hole. Rather than being vaporized by unrelenting cascades of antimatter, the game all of a sudden turned into a riff on Asteroids, complete with bullet-shooting Dominator ships, and a kitschy soundtrack.